Lee Bains + The Glory Fires Release New Single 'The Battle Of Atlanta'

Don Giovanni Records has just released the new single from Lee Bains + The Glory Fires titled "The Battle Of Atlanta" across all streaming platforms and Bandcamp.

It is the third and final single to be released ahead of the album titled Old-Time Folks, which was produced in Athens, GA by David Barbe (Drive-By Truckers, Sugar, Son Volt). The album will be released this Friday, August 5.

On Old-Time Folks, Bains sets out to investigate the band's origins in Alabama and West Georgia, and to summon stories of that land's peoples, rising up collectively to defend and liberate themselves from systems of power and exploitation.

Today, Lee + The Glory Fires have released the single and music video "The Battle Of Atlanta." Bains had this to say about the track.

"Having spent over half my life in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and over a decade now living a couple hours away in Atlanta, Georgia, I've come to think of Birmingham and Atlanta's histories as a tale of two cities. While they started with similar cultures, landscapes, and economies, they've developed very differently.

Growing up in Birmingham, a mid-sized blue-collar regional city that came to be known around the world for images of virulent racism and white-supremacist terror, the bustling financial metropolis of Atlanta presented itself as a more progressive city, a reputation that Atlanta's powerful tried to cement through the Civil Rights era as "the city too busy to hate."

This song is a reflection on that mythology, and how, in many ways, the business of Atlanta's power structure has always been and is still being built on the very racism, labor exploitation, displacement, and carceralism of Atlantans that its PR machine claims to be above, and how that false narrative makes all of that business so much more dangerous."

While Lee + the Glory Fires have spent a decade propagating what the New York Times calls "pandemonium with a conscience," Bains and rhythm section Adam and Blake Williamson recently found themselves listening to records that were more produced, arranged, and textured than their own past work, to records that struck them as timeless and immense, ones that invited you in, to get lost in the details.

On many bleary-eyed interstate drives, they talked about wanting to make a classic record - not a transparent document of their playing live with the occasional embellishment - but a record. They talked about working with a producer who had made such albums. About taking Bains' songs and deconstructing them, stripping them down to their most minimal elements, reimagining them, and building them back up again.

They talked about closely considering arrangements, digging into their varied influences. Swapping instruments. Getting high-fidelity sounds. Inviting guest musicians. Incorporating percussion and synthesizers and horns and strings. Maybe even doing a song or two without a blaring electric guitar, or even-gasp-without a guitar at all.

So, that's what they did. They contacted Athens, GA's David Barbe, whose work with the Drive-By Truckers, Sugar, Son Volt, Vic Chesnutt and countless other artists has earned him a legendary reputation amongst Southern independent rockers, and they agreed to set about bringing this vision to fruition.

After months of recording demos with John Paul Foster in Montevallo, Alabama and going over arrangements with Texas punk stalwart and longtime collaborator Tim Kerr (who the band calls their "coach"), the band decamped to Athens to record with Barbe at Chase Park Transduction in December of 2019.

Soon after laying down the initial tracks, the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, and the usually hard-touring trio soon found themselves at home with yet more time to consider, flesh out, and arrange this new batch of songs. The result is an album whose levels of dynamics, nuance, range, and intimacy are new for the band.

Enriching those explorations are kindred musical spirits like pianist Thayer Sarrano, organist Jay Gonzalez (Drive-By Truckers), singer Kym Register (Loamlands), horn players William Washington and Theresa May (Mourning A BLKstar), and string arranger Annie Leeth, whose idiosyncratic contributions to the album deepen that sense of collectivism that the lyrics invoke.

Lee Bains + The Gloryfires Tour Dates

Fri 8/5 - Birmingham, AL - Seasick Records in-store (solo)
Sat 8/6 - Waverly, AL - Standard Deluxe (solo)
Thu 8/11 - Durham, NC - Pinhook#
Fri 8/12 - Washington, DC - Comet Ping Pong#
Sat 8/13 - New York, NY - The Broadway#
Sun 8/14 - Boston, MA - Faces#
Mon 8/15 - Philadelphia, PA - Ukie Club#
Tue 8/16 - Pittsburgh, PA - Roboto#
Wed 8/17 - Columbus, OH - Rumba Cafe#
Thu 8/18 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop#*
Fri 8/19 - Chicago, IL - Sleeping Village#*
Sat 8/20 - Minneapolis, MN - Palmer's#
Sun 8/21 - Madison, WI - Dark Horse#
Mon 8/22 - St. Louis, MO - Sinkhole#
Tue 8/23 - Memphis, TN - Hi Tone#
Wed 8/24 - Little Rock, AR - White Water Tavern#
Thu 8/25 - Chattanooga, TN - Cherry Street Tavern#
Fri 8/26 - Birmingham, AL - The Nick#
Sat 8/27 - Atlanta, GA - The EARL#
Sun 8/28 - Greenville, SC - Radio Room#
Sun 9/11 - Mobile, AL - Alabama Music Box (solo)
Mon 9/12 - New Orleans, LA - Grow Dat (solo)@
Tue 9/13 - Baton Rouge, LA - Yes We Cannibal (solo)@
Wed 9/14 - San Antonio, TX - The Lonesome Rose (solo)
Thu 9/15 - Austin, TX - Antone's (solo)^
Fri 9/16 - Houston, TX - Heights Theater (solo)^
Sat 9/17 - Dallas, TX - Kessler Theater (solo)^
Sun 9/18 - Tulsa, OK - Mercury Lounge (solo)+
Mon 9/19 - Little Rock, AR - White Water Tavern (solo)+
Thu 9/22 - Tuscaloosa, AL - Druid City Brewing Co. (solo)
Fri 9/23 - Florence, AL - Dorm Eleven (solo)
Wed 10/26 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry's (solo)
Thu 10/27 - Bentonville, AR - Meteor (solo)^
Sat 10/29 - Somerset, KY - The Virginia Theater (solo)^
Sun 10/30 - Huntington, WV - The LOUD (solo)^
Wed 11/2 - New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge (solo)^
Thu 11/3 - Alexandria, VA - Birchmere (solo)^

# with Loamlands
* with Lonnie Holley (feat Mourning [A] BLKstar & Lee Bains)
@ with Theo Grizol
^ with John Moreland
+ with Brent Best

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